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New York City has long been more than America's biggest and most fabled city — it's a place that symbolizes fresh starts and new opportunities, and there are scores of songs and stories about folks pulling up roots and heading to the Big Apple in search of a better and more exciting life. Steve Earle wrote one such song on his 1997 album El Corazón, "NYC," in which a nervy kid from Tennessee hitchhikes to Manhattan because "there must be something happening, it's just too big a town," and a decade later Earle followed him, moving to New York to escape Red State malaise. Washington Square Serenade, Earle's 12th studio album and first in three years, deals in part with the sights and sounds of his new hometown, from the red-tailed hawk that lives in Central Park ("Down Here Below") to the multilingual chatter of the streets ("City of Immigrants"), while also taking a look back at the home he left behind on tunes like "Oxycontin Blues," "Red Is the Color," and "Jericho Road." While there's a strength in the familiar textures of the songs where Earle remembers Tennessee, there's a welcome sense of rejuvenation in the album's first half as he shares the details of his adventures in New York (which also includes a new bride, Allison Moorer, who lends lovely backing vocals to these sessions and is the presumable inspiration for "Sparkle and Shine" and "Days Aren't Long Enough"), and the expressionistic imagery of "Down Here Below" and "Satellite Radio" works beautifully in this context. After producing his last few album himself, Earle turned those chores over to Dust Brother John King for Washington Square Serenade, and King brings a welcome collision of the traditional and the contemporary to the music, facing scratchy drum loops against mandolins and dobros while letting a folky simplicity carry the day when it best suits the song, and the sound is crisp and forceful throughout. Washington Square Serenade ultimately sounds a bit less focused than its immediate predecessors, the politically minded Jerusalem and The Revolution Starts...Now (despite the presence of "Red Is the Color" and "Steve's Hammer"), but it also finds Earle trying out some new tricks both as a performer and a songwriter, and it's exciting and encouraging to hear him exploring fresh turf after two decades of record-making, and there's lots of fine music to be had on this set. 


4 Stars


- allmusicguide.com


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Like Tom Russell and Dave Alvin, Earle is a songwriter who sharpens with age. Recent albums “Jerusalem” (2002) and 2004's “The Revolution Starts...Now” found him politically charged, tilting at Bush & Co. with undisguised revulsion. It was reflected in the music too, which was gruff, tetchy, raw.


Now, a move to New York (Greenwich Village to be specific) has given Earle fresh impetus. Produced by Dust Brother John King at Electric Lady Studios, “Washington Square Serenade” feels far more personal. Layering acoustic and electric guitars over vaguely hip-hop beats, much of it sounds like Earle taking stock of his new home and nodding his approval. New York, he admits, was where he was always headed. Nashville just happened to get in the way.


"Tennessee Blues" directly addresses his decision to quit Nashville two years ago. Set to bright guitar and skeletal beats, Earle growls "Sunset in my mirror / Pedal on the floor / Bound for New York City / And I won't be back no more". And why would you, when you're nestled in a garden apartment on the street depicted on the sleeve of “The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan”?


Elsewhere, there's a new thrust to most of the other songs too. "Satellite Radio", bizarrely enough, begins like Portishead, then opens out into an improbable kind of folk rap that's one of the best moments here. And with traditional Brazilian rhythms courtesy of Forro In The Dark, "City Of Immigrants" finds Earle plugging in to a new strain of urban tropicalia.

Of course, this is hardly wholesale reinvention. Wife Alison Moorer duets on "Days Aren't Long Enough", while the country boy shines through on the banjo-heavy "Oxycontin Blues" and an old-timey "Jericho Road". It's all invigorating, wonderful stuff. Wherever he goes, Earle finds a rich seam of song to mine.


- Uncut Magazine


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The title and opening songs of Washington Square Serenade are as much a celebration of New York City--Steve Earle's newly adopted home--as his breakthrough Guitar Town was an evocation of his previous home in Nashville. In fact, the opening "Tennessee Blues," with its acoustic guitar over a digital rhythm loop, bids "goodbye to Guitar Town," as he leaves with "a redhead by my side." That would be wife Allison Moorer, who harmonizes beautifully with her husband on "Days Aren't Long Enough," written by the two; provides background vocals elsewhere; and plainly inspires "Sparkle and Shine" and the bittersweet "Come Home to Me," two of the album's loveliest songs. The result is a new chapter in Earle's career, an album unlike any he's previously recorded, produced by John King of the Dust Brothers (Beck, Beastie Boys). While the raw, raging blues of "Red Is the Color" ranks with Earle's most powerful music, "Satellite Radio" could well be the slightest (as well as perhaps a plug for Earle's own radio show), but the artist's willingness to take chances attests to a restless creativity that refuses to be corralled. Other noteworthy tracks include the Brazilian-tinged "City of Immigrants," the tribute to Pete Seeger on "Steve's Hammer," and the closing rendition of Tom Waits's "Down in the Hole," which will serve as the theme music for Season 5 of The Wire.


- amazon.com


source: uncut.co.uk


Artist: Steve Earle

Album: Washington Square Serenade

Date Of Release: September 25, 2007

Genre: Country Rock, Folk Rock, Americana

Bitrate: VBR --alt-preset extreme